Now I become myself by May Sarton

Now I become myself. It's taken time, many years and places;

I have been dissolved and shaken, worn other people's faces

Run madly, as if Time were there, terribly old, crying a warning,

"Hurry, you will be dead before--"

(What? Before you reach the morning? Or the end of the poem is clear?

Or love safe in the walled city?)

Now to stand still, to be here, Feel my own weight and density!

The black shadow on the paper is my hand; the shadow of a word

As thought shapes the shaper

Falls heavy on the page, is heard.

All fuses now, falls into place

From wish to action, word to silence,

My work, my love, my time, my face

gathered into one intense Gesture of growing like a plant.

As slowly as the ripening fruit,

Fertile, detached, and always spent

Falls but does not exhaust the root

So all the poem is, can give,

Grows in me to become the song

Made so and rooted in love

Now there is tune and Time is young

O in this single hour I live

All of myself and do not move

I the pursued who madly ran

Stand Still, stand still, and stop the sun!

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